How about a whole host of yummy hearts recipes.. In this case, lamb maybe a few chicken or duck heart recipes thrown in.

So I have four to six planned recipes over the next week or two that are going to involve using hearts in your meals, so lets talk about the heart itself for a bit.. Traditionally within our family, heart was eaten, I still have very fond memories of stuffed moose heart, not just good the first time around but so amazing cold sliced thin and used in a sandwhich.

The second way we often got heart was chicken or turkey heart, which tended to be slow roasted and eaten whole.. every now and again, my mom would or myself in my twenties would buy a whole package of chicken hearts, simmer them with onions, garlic, sauce and enjoy them that way..

Most cultures have a story about heart being the food of the warriors or hunters, but really when it comes to cooking, there are few things to remember.

a) Cook it fast or Cook it Slow both will give your excellent results, the middle will give you some very tough meat indeed.

c) Got family or guests that are little ah about the idea of eating heart, don’t serve whole, slice and dice and they will enjoy it much more.

d) Grind it and use it in hamburgers, or other soups, stews or meatballs etc, if grinding it up, still remove the sliver skin but you can leave the fat on the outside as it will blend in.

Tradionally if you are buying your hearts, they will be split open, this is because they must be inspected, and that is the case with my lamb hearts. These have been frozen now for a few months so much duller and darker in color then a fresh heart would be.

First things first if there are any valves left, trim them out and throw them away..

So when you look at the heart, you have the “strings” to remove, and you will have thinner and thicker peices of meat, the thin peices like the one I am holding can be used for stew bits or for ground meat bits.

In the end, between the three lamb hearts I was able to create a number of different meat cuts, on the top left, I have the meaty bits with fat that will go to make my Rich Heart Barley Stew Recipe, the front smaller peices is shown below sliced super thin for use in a fresh veggie Stirfry over a bed of coucous.

The bigger peices is going to be used to make a lovely stuffed peice of heart. On the bottom right side, we have lots of cleaned chopped bits, which will either be made into a stew or used to make heart/Lamb Ground burgers, and on the right top, is lovely cubed heart for a spicy shish kabob.